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Pretty good video that summarizes everything as a whole. Unfortunately the "journalism" has turned into professional shilling. Fans of a series can't be universally upset about something without being negatively labeled themselves in reaction to their reaction. There is very little actual integrity. I remember when long ago I thought journalism and news was supposed to be neutral and provide facts. I learned fast but these past few years it seems like people have given a middle finger to trying to actually pretend they are neutral and have just gone off the deep end.

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So.. giving up finally on getting good written-word journalism having singularly failed to find any in quite some time, can anyone point me to any good Youtubers? I'm wanting to find out about exciting upcoming releases, what's happening in the industry, etc and mostly game on PC. I have a few specialists such as Empty Box for sim-racing etc but a generalist would be of interest due to the chance of a bit of serendipity in finding something I might not necessarily have looked for (as RPS used to provide back in the day).

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Remember a time before the internet? When us gamers did not have the ability to hate on each other over long distances, and could instead play video games with people we really knew in life, instead of complete strangers? Remember a time from before the alt right V the Left? before the times of sjw's V anti sjws? before jack thompson, anita sarkeesian, brianna wu, laci greene, zoe quinn, brian mcintosh, gamergate, the mary sue, their fans and their haters? before the dark times. before the empire. pepperridge farms remembers. I miss those days. When gaming was actually about gaming, not all this extra S***.

It has always been a shitshow, Even before the internet I remember the hilarious readers letters sections in gaming magazines. Not to mention console wars existing from the moment consoles existed. I seem to remember as well someone posting an old BBS bulletin board screenshot from like the late 80s or early 90s of people flaming each other over video game opinions. The best thing to do is lead by example and don't get caught up into it.

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It's so to realize that people have such a hive mindset that people now believe that gaming journalism is completely detached from gamers. GET OFF OF TWITTER! And on top of that, everybody that talks about games for a living will agree with you. Learn to live with that and take the information that's given to you as an opinion. Most of this stuff is subjective.

I think the difference today is that you are constantly inundated with hyperbolic messaging from both sides thanks to social media hot take culture. Back then, yeah, the same people and attitudes existed, but the social media cancer not existing kept this stuff smaller scale.

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I think the difference today is that you are constantly inundated with hyperbolic messaging from both sides thanks to social media hot take culture. Back then, yeah, the same people and attitudes existed, but the social media cancer not existing kept this stuff smaller scale.

You are 100% correct. Which is why I said in my post above yours to "get off of Twitter". Social Media makes things feel so much bigger than they are at times. It's hard to gauge how serious you need to take something.

Member

We have two dedicated thread about journalist. I'm seriously asking whats happening with NeoGAF lately!!? All we getting lately is topic like this or "controversy"or about "SJW". Is this type of topic most people want to talk about these days?

Member

These guys, Will Powers and Jason Schreier, are my heroes. I also love Eurogamer. I love these guys and I love mobile gaming because the best games are on mobile. Growing up in the 90s my gaming heroes were Mario and Sonic, nowadays it's the radical lefties.

Member

Pretty good video that summarizes everything as a whole. Unfortunately the "journalism" has turned into professional shilling. Fans of a series can't be universally upset about something without being negatively labeled themselves in reaction to their reaction. There is very little actual integrity. I remember when long ago I thought journalism and news was supposed to be neutral and provide facts. I learned fast but these past few years it seems like people have given a middle finger to trying to actually pretend they are neutral and have just gone off the deep end.

AC Unity had bugs, glitches and missing faces....becomes flavor of the month non-stop articles
Witcher 3 launches with bugs, glitches, missing faces... and perfect scores and comments that just state " minor glitches do pop up from time to time " ignoring flying horses, CORRUPTED SAVES that even many sites ran the story on, yet STILL gave perfect scores.

Game releases by publishers the majority hate and has DLC, labeled as cut content
Game releases by publishers the majority feel "can do no wrong" and has DLC, and "wish we could have at least one more"

Sooooo its clear that some favoritism exist in this industry and based on what publisher or developer does something will alter what a "journalist" states.

I disagree with this style of journalism even when its in FAVOR of a game I like.

Member

It's so to realize that people have such a hive mindset that people now believe that gaming journalism is completely detached from gamers. GET OFF OF TWITTER! And on top of that, everybody that talks about games for a living will agree with you. Learn to live with that and take the information that's given to you as an opinion. Most of this stuff is subjective.

Oddly enough Twitter is one of the few places I've found like-minded people that do like games the way I do, without it it would be a sea of game journalists looking down on me for my interests.

For me, it's not a case of wanting all game journalists to agree with me, it's finding any that agree with me. Game journalism has the least amount of variety of opinions I've ever seen in entertainment. I never see reviews that say something positive about sex appeal or fan service in a game, even a game designed entirely around it, for example. Maybe a few specialty, Japanese centered sites will but not much else.

I would be much less concerned if more game journalists presented their views as opinions but, unfortunately, that's not often the case. I just read through reviews for Death Mark and a lot of them point to the eroticism in the game as a problem. It's a selling point for me.

If they stopped at saying they didn't like it but it's there for the people who do like it I would be fine. Instead, some attempt to lecture about how disgusting the game is, one review even linking a Guardian article in the middle while making a much grander case against the use of women and eroticism in horror. It feels like the reviewer is arguing against the existence of the game and it's art rather than reviewing the game. It's the same song and dance, you can reliably bet a game journalist will single out women in any given game and bring up sexism or something along those lines.

It's a very big, complicated issue that needs to be handled where there can be debate. Game sites would be great if they had debates, like one writer in favor of eroticism and another against it. As it is, I consider game journalism as a whole to be pretty immature with how often writers resort to personal attacks against gamers and don't accept others opinions. With how much censorship is going on I think it's an issue many have good reason to be concerned about. I mean, I shouldn't read a review and feel unwelcome, like I shouldn't be tolerated for liking a game with fan service (the same applies to the people who get trashed for wanting more lgbt and minority leads in games, no one should feel their interests are not welcome in an entertainment industry).

Banned

That's not the real problem. The issue is that those guys/gals/trans people of Kotaku aren't presenting their own opinions, aren't bold enough to pour their personality to their work, instead they are great covered PR people. And the ones who try to inject far left bullshit and ridiculous political corectness to their work. Have you seen an article titled "Blizzard is out it their mind, Diablo Immortal reveal meets fan backlash"? Me neither.

Member

I've ever seen in entertainment. I never see reviews that say something positive about sex appeal or fan service in a game, even a game designed entirely around it, for example.

I would be much less concerned if more game journalists presented their views as opinions but, unfortunately, that's not often the case. I just read through reviews for Death Mark and a lot of them point to the eroticism in the game as a problem. It's a selling point for me.

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Yes, we badly need it. Schreier is a fucking hack, but don't let him trick you into thinking it doesn't matter or that we shouldn't demand better. We're so used to the piss poor quality of journalism that gaming gets that it's numbing, but fight back that feeling. Even places in other entertainment areas that are really political, like AVClub or shit like that, usually shit out a quality piece or two. These assholes are unable to even luck into an actual article.

My suggestion would be just ignore these people. Pretend they're not even there. Recommend others to do the same. Don't harass or "harass" them, they feed on that. Heck they still have a job because of that. They will go away, believe that.

And their you go. One story to publish about how money doesn't grow on trees and how fans of a franchise miiiight feel like they have been tricked out of their hard earned cash. That recourse you have to mine for the majority of your life to hold any standing in society.
I wonder why people get the idea journalists and games media are jacking each other off behind a curtain?

Based on all this happening, it's going to be really interesting as pressure is growing from very different fanbases over very different reasons. EA have labelled their fans sexists and misogynists, Diablo fans are being called manbabies, the thing with Jessica Price, the reaction to Ubi and China censorship it's not going to be so easy to just hide behind the curtain of gamergate 2.0 now. There are too many people aware of how regular gamers are under attack and having their valid opinions and thoughts tossed aside and then being called abhorrent things just for the trouble.

Seriously? I had no idea about this. They used to be so good man, it's a shame what happened. But I just assumed it was the same shit as Eurogamer, the good people left and they hired socially conscious weirdos to do the job.

My point stands though. Even shitholes like AVClub will shit out a good piece from time to time. When is the last time you could say the same about Kotaku or current Eurogamer or Polygon or Waypoint or any of these insufferable hellholes?

And it's also obvious that some gamers hate and have contempt for other gamers that have different interest than their own. It's why you have some gamers that get so mad when VR gamers are shown at E3 events. As if many of us don't love those segments. I don't act like it's only people in the games media that have contempt for gamers.

Member

Thing is, a lot of them seem to view their work as a kind of activism. They don't want to cede the medium to the people they hate.

But yeah that comment is exactly right. Youtubers are doing the stuff they no longer care to do. That guy that Schreier was calling out on twitter the other day, SkillUp Youtube or whatever, has a shitload more Youtube followers than the Kotaku channel.

Member

As I wrote in a similar thread elsewhere, I think there's plenty of room for criticism on both sides. But, as seems depressingly typical these days, neither side wants to admit any fault.

Do some (I'd even go as far to say many) "journalists" suck, absolutely. Thing is, some fans (particularly the ultra-hardcore variety) suck too.

The problem seems to be that noone seems to want to parse out the bad-actors on either side, so any (deserved) criticism is viewed as an insult to the entire group. Now obviously the members of the "enthusiast press" are a far more homogeneous bunch than "gamers", but the issue still applies with caveats.

Lets be honest, some gamers are horribly entitled. But, that's fine, because there are literally tens of millions of people in that group. The problem with the current state of the gaming press is that its a small, and ideologically remarkably homogeneous group. You can legitimately make generalizations about, for example, their political leanings, whereas making the same argument against "gamers" is utterly ridiculous, we're talking about thousands versus tens of millions.

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Youtube, by and large, outdates the conventional media outlets with the established viewer base, ease of the platform, cheap overhead, and a multitude of monetization options for content creators. It's far more of a mixed bag but that's what is good about it. There are shit youtubers and good ones, and you can make the decisions. Also, it proves exclusive content filtered by the publishers isn't needed. People want news, reviews, impressions, and discussion. They don't want journalists talking down to them in the hopes of getting exclusive content 30 mins earlier before it hits... well.. Youtube. People have overwhelmingly proven they can wait that 30 mins.

Member

AC Unity had bugs, glitches and missing faces....becomes flavor of the month non-stop articles
Witcher 3 launches with bugs, glitches, missing faces... and perfect scores and comments that just state " minor glitches do pop up from time to time " ignoring flying horses, CORRUPTED SAVES that even many sites ran the story on, yet STILL gave perfect scores.

Game releases by publishers the majority hate and has DLC, labeled as cut content
Game releases by publishers the majority feel "can do no wrong" and has DLC, and "wish we could have at least one more"

Sooooo its clear that some favoritism exist in this industry and based on what publisher or developer does something will alter what a "journalist" states.

I disagree with this style of journalism even when its in FAVOR of a game I like.

I am half expecting most media outlet address the bugs, go light on the MTX, go gentle on the lack of NPC/story, and then for some inexplicable reason (Edit: usually the words "fun", "ambitious", "immersive" will be the the cited reasons) give the game between a 7 - 9 out of 10 in the review of Fallout 76. Why? Cause of advertising money.

I hope they stick to their laurels, because the universal praise to their last Fallout bug machines, and the OG bugs they still reintroduce with Skyrim ports only get talked about by gamer's and Streamer Personalities.

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The thing is that gaming press people won’t willfully stop. The perceived power they have— the power to shape opinions and talk down to who they think are lesser people— is too enticing... until they land that job in the video game industry that they kissed so much ass and shat upon so many readers or viewers to get.

Then they can hate video game players for different reasons.

Unfortunately for them, the sound of inevitability is getting louder. YouTube and Twitch personalities are becoming the voices that people want to hear, and there’s less and less demand for traditional games press. Less demand will force change, whether it’s word from above that press needs to stop chasing away its readership/viewership by treating people like shit... or website closures or mergers that force press folks to find different work.

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I hope they stick to their laurels, because the universal praise to their last Fallout bug machines, and the OG bugs they still reintroduce with Skyrim ports only get talked about by gamer's and Streamer Personalities.

Now I heard many of them talking about the bugs in the last Fallout game. It's that the fun they have "despite" the bugs is why it's not the leading story for those games. The Witcher 3 can be viewed the same way. We all put up with bugs if a game is doing 1,000 things all at the same time and it's a huge RPG.

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Thing is, a lot of them seem to view their work as a kind of activism. They don't want to cede the medium to the people they hate.

But yeah that comment is exactly right. Youtubers are doing the stuff they no longer care to do. That guy that Schreier was calling out on twitter the other day, SkillUp Youtube or whatever, has a shitload more Youtube followers than the Kotaku channel.

They know they're becoming more irrelevant every day so they're doubling down on NPC activism and attacks on gamers.
But unfortunately the small burst of attention they get for trash articles doesn't translate in new readers. Sow the wind and reap the whirlwind.

square pies = communism

As tempting as it is to poo-poo the bad journalism, I think it's equally, if not more important, to point out the good content. Yes, point out when an outlet royally screws up, shows clear bias, etc., but the last thing I want to see this OT turn into is a circle jerk of people going, "Wow, games journalism sure is terrible! Amirite!?!?" If someone comes across a good video, article, or whatever, I hope it gets posted here as well so we can spread the word about good content and do more to correct the problem, not just complain about it. =)

Member

It's so to realize that people have such a hive mindset that people now believe that gaming journalism is completely detached from gamers. GET OFF OF TWITTER! And on top of that, everybody that talks about games for a living will agree with you. Learn to live with that and take the information that's given to you as an opinion. Most of this stuff is subjective.

Pretty much every day I log in here I see at least one post of yours that I agree with wholeheartedly, this one included. But this one comes with nuance. I agree its sad that most people fall into the mindset you mentioned. But on this topic, I firmly believe that a handful of outlets have literally caused this sad mindset and have given people good reason to believe there is a complete detachment, all out of pure and unadulterated greed. Either by giving glowing previews for months until shitting on crap games after pre-orders are picked up (and at least once by changing a review score after publisher backlash). Or by politicizing their content to such a point that it seemed they have started sharing a bed with Jack Thompson to a lot of people, all while feeding off clicks from the twitter crowd like poo in a honey pot. All done for greed, and in many cases from the same people who argue that greed is bad on topics like crunch time. And like something out of an onion article, here we have a well known face from the GAWKER family of websites crying about people being mean because of assumed pay to win mechanics. Seriously, how is anyone supposed to see a gawker employee decrying being a dick to someone over something they consider petty, and not shake their head like they entered the twilight zone? Gawker's entire business model seems, to me at least, focused on causing twitter outrages these last few years over much more petty issues.

Anyway, at this point the market seems to have almost completely detached itself from games journalism. And I think it's time for me to try staying away from these topics as much as possible. It's getting old and boring and a waste of time in life. If people want to support games journalists I hope they enjoy whatever content they are supporting. I'll just abstain from said content until games journalists reset themselves, acknowledge their role in causing the infighting among gamers, apologize for it, and return to informing over preaching. There's always going to be a place for editorials, as there should be, but I need an extended break from the identity politics editorials in my news before I can ignore just ignore the article instead of the entire site.

Member

I think this is consuming too much of my time, as well. I almost completely left conversations about game journalism with the intention to just put my money towards what I want to support but then Sony starting censoring and blocking games I was going to buy. Now I really need to pay attention to what games are censored. I need to find places that cover the censorship so I know what I'm buying. The journalism is so bad I can't figure out what's censored or not now, take Death Mark for example. That game has been out for a week and there it's not certain if the NA Switch version is censored or not. How is that possible!?

I try to stay on sites I like, like DualShockers, and I do contribute to some YouTubers Patreons like YongYea. Hopefully the rather large push back from multiple unsatisfied groups of gamers as well as some bigger people, like Mark Kern, speaking out will help correct this ship.

Member

Pretty much every day I log in here I see at least one post of yours that I agree with wholeheartedly, this one included. But this one comes with nuance. I agree its sad that most people fall into the mindset you mentioned. But on this topic, I firmly believe that a handful of outlets have literally caused this sad mindset and have given people good reason to believe there is a complete detachment, all out of pure and unadulterated greed. Either by giving glowing previews for months until shitting on crap games after pre-orders are picked up (and at least once by changing a review score after publisher backlash). Or by politicizing their content to such a point that it seemed they have started sharing a bed with Jack Thompson to a lot of people, all while feeding off clicks from the twitter crowd like poo in a honey pot. All done for greed, and in many cases from the same people who argue that greed is bad on topics like crunch time. And like something out of an onion article, here we have a well known face from the GAWKER family of websites crying about people being mean because of assumed pay to win mechanics. Seriously, how is anyone supposed to see a gawker employee decrying being a dick to someone over something they consider petty, and not shake their head like they entered the twilight zone? Gawker's entire business model seems, to me at least, focused on causing twitter outrages these last few years over much more petty issues.

Anyway, at this point the market seems to have almost completely detached itself from games journalism. And I think it's time for me to try staying away from these topics as much as possible. It's getting old and boring and a waste of time in life. If people want to support games journalists I hope they enjoy whatever content they are supporting. I'll just abstain from said content until games journalists reset themselves, acknowledge their role in causing the infighting among gamers, apologize for it, and return to informing over preaching. There's always going to be a place for editorials, as there should be, but I need an extended break from the identity politics editorials in my news before I can ignore just ignore the article instead of the entire site.

Here's the thing. Now with social media being so important and everyone having a voice, we're not going back to the 90s or the early 00s. In those days there were Gatekeepers (the media) and they decided what was important to talk about and what wouldn't be talked about. Now even a person with 500 Twitter followers can tweet something and it can catch fire and get retweeted 5,000 times in one day. Well....guess who will be writing an article about it the next day to jump on that "Trending Topic"?

As much as it might suck, it's financial malpractice for the video game's media to not speak on these things when they catch fire on social media. Right now I'd say the Diablo Immortal story is lighting up social media amongst gamers. The gaming media will have to talk about it, if they already haven't. My question is "how" will they cover it? Will they want to protect the devs or will they be honest and properly express how and more importantly why gamers are upset about this new mobile game.

Member

Here's the thing. Now with social media being so important and everyone having a voice, we're not going back to the 90s or the early 00s. In those days there were Gatekeepers (the media) and they decided what was important to talk about and what wouldn't be talked about. Now even a person with 500 Twitter followers can tweet something and it can catch fire and get retweeted 5,000 times in one day. Well....guess who will be writing an article about it the next day to jump on that "Trending Topic"?

As much as it might suck, it's financial malpractice for the video game's media to not speak on these things when they catch fire on social media. Right now I'd say the Diablo Immortal story is lighting up social media amongst gamers. The gaming media will have to talk about it, if they already haven't. My question is "how" will they cover it? Will they want to protect the devs or will they be honest and properly express how and more importantly why gamers are upset about this new mobile game.

Alright, jumping back in since you took the time to respond to me. I would vote for 2 things. 1) Cover it as news - ie, write about people being upset and the history of pay to win in mobile. Take no sides at all. 2) If they wish to editorialize it, which is reasonable, put that piece and all other opinion pieces in an opinion section. Keep news and opinion separate, both in content and location. If they did this with everything, I think media backlash might subside rapidly. Not completely, but significantly.